


Halifax Yesterday

by anniesburg



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Barely-There Romance, Bonding Over Sea Shanties, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Historical Inaccuracy, One Shot, Set smack-dab in the middle of Dead Man's Chest, awkward beginnings, scruffington
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 19:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17566667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anniesburg/pseuds/anniesburg
Summary: In which the horrors of privateering are a ham-fisted metaphor for a disgraced officer in over his head.





	Halifax Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> this is so weird. this is a weird fic. this could probably do with another chapter to Complete my Vision but i don't know if i'm going to so??? enjoy some james in the pits of despair and the admirable efforts to console him through song.

He’s a broken man on the end of a dock in Jamaica, staring at the deceptively calm water. The hatred from him is like a flame, his tongue’s barbed like the end of a scorpion’s tail. Nobody touches him, not with hands and not with eyes. Nobody wants to be burned. 

But the stuttering nature of his rage is more of an invocation than a threat. Pitiable creatures tend to tug on your heartstrings, it’s why you slip scraps to the cats that don’t catch the mice. The world’s only as cruel as you make it. 

Of course, Norrington’s made it very cruel. 

“You look like you could be the last of Barrett’s privateers,” the conversation you strike up is expectantly one-sided. Standing next to him at the end of the pier, the waves look a little more tumultuous, perhaps comfortably so. You know what to do with the wild in more than one sense. 

How ironic that you’d be terrified of him in uniform, freshly-washed with his ceremonial sword tucked safely in his belt. But he’s shed the shadow, scrubbed his face with mud and rendered himself completely harmless. Desperate, yes, but harmless. 

“That’s perhaps the most creative insult thus far.” The disgust in his voice can’t hide the dignity. This man made lieutenant on his first try, you’re sure of it. Everything but appearance screams by the book. 

“You’ll be quite lonely if you consider everything an insult, James Norrington.” His sea-cast eyes turn to you, then. They’re a pretty colour, bottle-green, you’ll give him that. 

“In case it’s escaped your notice, I have both my legs.” He snaps. You lift an eyebrow. 

“Perhaps, but this isn’t a Halifax pier,” He’s uncertain of what you’re implying, his mind still addled by rum and rage. “not yet, anyway.”

He’ll be in a bad way, one day. You’re sure of that. But for the moment, at this very moment, Norrington will be all right. He has lower still to sink, and higher peaks to climb. 

You could see him half-pulled together, not enough to shock or mortify you, but enough to make him recognizable as a man. He could embrace this new freedom, safe from brutal regulations. Safe from being punished as a boy. 

Maybe he will, or he won’t. He doesn’t understand what you’re saying right now, but you’ve no desire to explain it in great detail. It’ll change or it won’t, you’ve been inclined to repeat yourself in the past. 

It’s inevitable, but you’re careful with your words. He could be miserable and lost six years from now. You hope not. 

“Goodnight, sir,” you say after a long, tense moment. You’ve made him angry with a reference he’s ashamed to understand. It’s useful information.

“Are you part of the crew?” He asks as you turn to walk away. You continue your retreat, turning only at the last possible second. The ship’ll leave Tortuga soon enough, he’ll be aboard because he’s a masochist. 

“Does that surprise you?” You ask, aware the military affinity for questions. It absolutely does surprise him, you can tell from his taxed expression. “See you onboard, Norrington. And again, goodnight.” 

He doesn’t try to stop you again, thank goodness. You’ve made your introductions, of a sort, and haven’t found his character to be especially wanting. You like him for what you know of him, despite what you’ve been told.

\---

You finally have peace when the Pearl’s left port. It’s a beautiful sight, black wood against sky-blue sea. Hope fills you for the very first time in a long while. 

But no one else, or at least no one else you’re watching. Top secret rescue missions lead to drawn, worried looks and apathetic jealousy. Poor Norrington’s convinced himself that he cares little for the woman in the red vest, the proper lady he’s known too long doesn’t feel the same way. 

He still does, it’s what keeps him pitiable when he embraces that whip-smart unkindness. The rest of the crew can’t stand him. 

They stand you, all right. If only because you arrive armed with a fiddle and a head full of songs. You’re at the head of rousing choruses of Spanish Ladies, in which the former commander does not take part. But he’d know the words, wouldn’t he? 

You catch his eye a few times, always purposeful in your intentions. He looks away first, more often than not and returns to menial tasks with a curve to his spine that speaks of discomfort. Even in the early days as a midshipman you doubt that such degradation was an expected way of life. 

The power ranking is different here, and he at least comes to appreciate it thusly. Instead of brandy and dinner with a pompous captain, he’s free to spend his down time staring at the setting sun with as much rum as his advanced salary can afford. 

It’s on one of these silently contemplative nights, a bit reminiscent of the meeting on the dock that you approach him again. 

Norrington sits on the stairs leading from the wheel to the main deck. He looks a bit forlorn, forgotten and unnoticed as the rest of the crew work in shifts to keep the ship running. It’s less crowded by far and you make yourself comfortable on the step above him. 

“Good evening,” you say, setting your fiddle on your lap. Norrington tilts his head back, looking at you with sunspots in his eyes from the intensity of the dying day. He blinks and casts his gaze back out to the horizon. 

He has a grim affinity for alcohol, as most do. It comes with no caveat, no saving grace. It’s a fact of life. He drinks from a green bottle for a long time but then, surprisingly, offers it up to you. 

How can you refuse? The burn of what you imagine is that same rum he’s fond of stings against your mouth and throat. You make a face and hear him exhale from his nose. Bringing your hand to your mouth, you hide a smile. Humour is contagious, worse than plague. 

“You know Barrett’s Privateers,” you say when you’re certain that the shock of the alcohol won’t embarrass you. Nevertheless, your voice sounds strained. 

“I know my fair share of songs. The men sing them but it’s frowned upon for the officers on deck to join in.” He replies. It’s the most you’ve heard from him yet. 

“But when it’s just the officers? Do you sing, then?” You lean to the side against the railing. That same, wild water whips itself into a frenzy, happy to spy a body it can drown. 

“I did,” he says, “then.” He’s sinking quickly into bitter-tasting melancholy. You refuse to give the bottle when he holds his hand out for it. You take another drink and stifle your grimace. 

“Goddamn them all,” the tune springs to the forefront of your mind, “I was told we’d cruise the seas for American gold!” Your voice is respectfully quiet for those on watch or sleeping in preparation for one. You shove the bottle into Norrington’s hands with a daring eye. 

“Didn’t I tell you before?” He asks, there’s that snake-bite again. But there’s no lunge, no desire to sink fangs into skin. 

“I don’t think you know the words after all,” you speak this time. Looking down at the frayed lace on your skirt, you push it up your knee until you’re comfortable. 

“Why does it matter?” He huffs. Norrington reaches for questions instead of admissions. 

“We’d fire no guns,” you try again. “shed no tears. Now I’m a broken man on a Halifax pier,” watching him intently, Norrington drinks what’s left in the bottle. 

“The last of Barrett’s privateers,” he finished, it’s not sung but instead coarsely said. With a dark expression, he tosses the bottle over the side of the ship. You hear it shatter on wood and the pieces are scattered in the water. 

“You can do better than that,” you chime. “prove it to me.” He seems uninterested in such things. 

“Why do you care so much for this awful song?” He asks again in a different sense, you feel like he’s closer to answering it for himself. 

“You’re the only man I’ve met who might know it as well as I do,” you say. “so many songs are too happy.” 

“Men want to be happy while they’re dying of scurvy.” Norrington sounds surly and that same hot-shame rises in his tone. You elect to exploit it. 

“Is that what you want? Happiness?” He shakes his head so firmly. 

“Revenge,” he says. “I have no illusions about the outcome.”

“Yet so many do,” if he’s chasing his dreams for the right reasons, who are you to belittle him? Revenge leads to pain and terror, he knows it and yet he pursues with little else to his name. “so many plan their future around it.” 

“Oh, but I do have a future.” He replies. 

“In piracy? Or is the law too good a bedfellow?” James Norrington looks at you with so much disgust in his eyes. You shrug. “I never would’ve guessed his majesty, King George to be so ardent a lover.” 

“Clearly not, with such an attitude towards things of a serious nature.” He sounds irked. Good. 

“Forgive me for assuming that’s the only draw, especially when it’s plainly all you have.” You turn your gaze to the rest of the ship. No, it isn’t clean or ideal but it’s better than where he’s come from. 

“I will regain what I’ve lost,” he says with a chilling insistence, clearly loose-lipped from the alcohol. But you find no satisfaction in secrets, whatever plans he has concern himself and perhaps a few others that you care very little for. 

“And what about the woman in the red vest?” You ask. “I’ve seen how you look at her.” 

“Elizabeth Swan?” He asks. 

“So that’s her name. Yes, her.” You clarify. 

“She was never mine to lose,” he confesses. The drop in his tone could take one’s breath away. “although there was a time I wanted the contrary.”

“Not any more?” This is all very along the lines of secrecy, but he doesn’t bother to silence himself. The parties involved are already aware of the heart-wrenching details. 

“No.” He says after a pause. 

“Pity, she looks at you so differently.” You wish quite wistfully that you had another bottle of rum to diffuse the formality of the conversation. You never were the village matchmaker, instead always the one for which matches were made. And broken. 

“How do you mean?” Norrington sounds accusatory. You shrug. 

“Like you have history. Real history. Of course, she does happen to be a bit of an idiot. I may be reading the cues incorrectly.” Norrington doesn’t reply to that, he gives you a skin-melting glare. “Sorry, touchy subject, my apologies.”

But she is, she has to be as naive as she looks to believe Jack Sparrow. Still, everyone was young once and willing to believe in the goodness of their heroes. Perhaps this Swan woman is no different. You can’t punish people for being born yesterday, not when that’s punishment enough. 

“Don’t think that I’m trying to give you false hope,” you add when he’s still silent. You feel a bit bad, after all. He exhales out of his nose again, a near-quiet outward reaction to things he wishes he didn’t find funny.

“I haven’t any, false or otherwise.” He replies. You resist the urge to roll your eyes. Of course, he’s been thoroughly broken down but you find the whole thing a bit gauche. 

“Give it time,” you say, “even Lancelot’s wounds might’ve healed if he had as long as we do.” 

“What makes you so certain?” He asks, his eyes are a little kinder, now. Or maybe they’re just sadder. Either way, they hardly sting when they rest on your face.

“It must be all the hope that’s come back to me, James Norrington.” You give him a smile that you don’t try to hide. “It’s quite a paradoxical emotion in that way, I can’t wait until yours returns.” 

“I’m in the unique place of understanding exactly how it could return.” He deadpans. You understand without him needing to clarify that those specifications do not involve you. That’s quite respectable. 

“Songs help hope along, if you’d like to get a leg-up.” You tell him. Norrington looks out at the ablaze night, the sun running fast towards the line of the water. 

“Not the bloody songs again,” he says. 

“They do more than distract from scurvy, you know,” you reply.

“You just don’t want to sing alone,” he begins with a cutting sarcasm to his tone, “you know.” You straighten your back, lifting a hand and gripping the splintered wood of the railing. 

“Who does?” You ask with a sharp coldness that betrays your feelings, giving a slight groan as you stand on your newfound sea legs. Norrington turns his head sharply as you begin to walk down the stairs with your skirt held out of the way. 

You feel a hand on yours first, he grabs it as you pass. Then, you hear him. 

“So here I lay in my twenty-third year. How I wish I was in Sherbrooke, now,” he has a fine voice, even the presence of rum still on his tongue can’t slur that crisp accent. You’re shocked at his volume, rising above the sound of the waves and the creaking of the wood. 

“It’s been six years since we sailed away,” you’re not so loud, still taken aback and trying to sit without pitching yourself backwards. You end up sharing a step with him, dragged down by his hand on yours and the heaviness of your surprise. 

“And I just made Halifax yesterday,” he seems devoted to singing as loud as he pleases. Your shoulder is to his, your knee to his knee. The smile that pulls at your mouth is subconscious and bright. 

You sing the chorus together, finding your own comfortable volume and ignoring any stares. No one else on board is familiar with the lyrics, it’s just you and him and the crying of orders from the captain’s deck. 

He purposefully began with the last verse in the song, you assume, because it’s over too quickly. Somewhere further down the ship, near the rigging starts the chorus of Drunken Sailor and your last note is thoroughly drowned.

But you’re grinning with a real joy behind your eyes, you watch Norrington struggle to keep his own smiles at bay. Songs have this kind of power. 

“I hate to say I told you so but when I’m right, I’m right,” you tell him through the desire to smile forever. 

“About what?” He asks, he always seems to have a question. Norrington’s tone informs you clear as day that he knows your exact response, he’s teasing you. But you’re unwilling to spoil this newfound goodwill. Instead, you lean your shoulder against his and sigh. 

“Nothing, nothing at all.” The singing by the rigging grows louder in volume and it tugs at something in your chest, somewhere close to your heart. So you take his hand first, before you stand up and give his arm a firm tug. “Do you know this song, too? It’s not that hard, you just have to over-pronounce early.” 

He doesn’t move, even when you’re stood up with him in tow. After a long, hard look, Norrington stands as well. 

“Not bad for an officer,” you say, looping your arm around his. Your fiddle’s by the mast and you pick it up with a flourish as you pass by, ready to make the din deafening.


End file.
